Chester-Allentown

Location: Pennsylvania, United States (40.434, -75.682 approx.)

Commodities: graphite

Recorded production

• Chester-Allentown: produced 6,350 metric tons of graphite, 1889–1954 (Fogg and Boyle (1987), Page 19, Table 16 — Fogg, C.T., and Boyle, E.H., Jr., 1987, Flake and high-crystalline graphite availability–Market economy countries—A minerals availability appraisal: U.S. Bureau of Mines Information Circular 9122, 40 p.)

Exploration and site history

• Resources: “At present, the only reserve-resource values that have been found in the literature refer to measured and inferred reserves at the Benjamin Franklin Mine and measured reserves at the Just Mine, both in Chester County. These values represent the results from trenching and sampling work done in November 1948. At the time, the two mines were estimated to contain a combined measured reserve of 800,000 mt ore at a weighted average grade of only 2.3 pet graphitic carbon; this amount has therefore been considered as the demonstrated resource for this study. The identified resource contains the measured plus inferred tonnages from the prior work and totals 1,015,800 mt ore at a similar graphitic carbon content. The extremely low grade and the nearness of the deposits to residential areas were reasons for not including this tonnage in the evaluated tonnage for the availability analysis.” (Fogg and Boyle (1987))
• Production: “Pennsylvania''s past flake graphite production occurred […] primarily at 14 localities in Chester County in an area southwest of Phoenixville that extends for about 10 km along Pickering Creek Valley. The majority of the production occurred from 1860 through 1919. Since 1920, the only production has been 360 mt in 1943, 160 mt in 1947-48, and 410 mt in 1953-54 from a 270-mt/d pilot plant constructed for the Bureau of Mines to treat ore from the Benjamin Franklin and the Just Mines.” (Fogg and Boyle (1987))
• Active — Mines in the region were active from 1860-1954, 1860–1954 (Fogg and Boyle (1987))

Record imported from USGS USMIN ver. 4.0 (June 2019). Developments after that date appear on facility records, not here; see the methodology.